<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>precursor by kareofbears</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736909">precursor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kareofbears/pseuds/kareofbears'>kareofbears</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hurt/Comfort, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:54:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736909</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kareofbears/pseuds/kareofbears</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Get out.” </p><p>The room drops to absolute silence. Everything stills, halted by Ryuji’s words. Only Akira remains unaffected—leaning against the back of his chair, hands still in his pockets, gaze cool. </p><p>Haru is the first to react. “Do…” Her eyes dart to Akira’s. “Were you talking about—” </p><p>“No. Everyone but him,” he jerks his head to the staircase. “<i>Out.</i>”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>212</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>precursor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>thank you <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildkat">mildkat</a> for beta-reading yet another akiryu fic</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Get out.” </p><p>The room drops to absolute silence. Everything stills, halted by Ryuji’s words. Only Akira remains unaffected—leaning against the back of his chair, hands still in his pockets, gaze cool. </p><p>Haru is the first to react. “Do…” Her eyes dart to Akira’s. “Were you talking about—” </p><p>“No. Everyone but him,” he jerks his head to the staircase. “<i>Out.</i>” </p><p>No one calls him out on his tone, not with the way Ryuji’s gripping the edge of the table like a talisman—a prayer that prevents evil from coming. Akira doesn’t know who the evil is in this situation. </p><p>Eventually, chairs scrape against the wooden floors as they all peter out and down the stairs, one by one. Each of them glances back at the two boys who remain, a leader and his right-hand man. It doesn’t matter what superficial titles they gave themselves; Ryuji will always hold one over him. </p><p>The bell chimes quietly from underneath their feet. They were alone. </p><p>He watches Ryuji. The way his knuckles are white, the way his eyebrows are scrunched. The way his posture is so rigid that he can tell it’s uncomfortable even from across the table. The way that Ryuji isn’t watching him back. </p><p>“You piss me off.” </p><p>Akira raises an eyebrow. “Right now, or—”</p><p>“Fuck you,” he spits, and Akira tries not to flinch. It’s not rare for Ryuji to drop an f-bomb, but it’s almost never directed at him, and definitely not with this much venom seeped into it. “I hate it when you do that.”</p><p>“Do what?” </p><p>“<i>That.</i>” Ryuji gestures with his free hand. “You say words that don’t mean jack, tryin’ to make a joke out of a time like this. You’re acting like I’m not sitting here, wanting to hurl my fist into a wall because of the shit you’re trying to pull. I just—” His knuckles go impossibly paler. “You don’t give a <i>damn,</i> Akira. You don’t give a single damn.” </p><p>“You think I don’t care?” his voice comes out dangerously soft.</p><p>“I didn’t say that—!” </p><p>“Because it sounds like that was what you were trying to say.” Akira leans forward. “If there’s one thing you can’t point at, Ryuji, is that I’m somehow lazy, or careless. You can’t say that I haven’t put every single fiber of my being into this—”</p><p>“And I’m <i>not.</i> I didn’t, and you’re shoving words I never even said down my throat to justify the bullshit that you want to do!” </p><p>He grits his teeth. “It’s not bullshit.” </p><p>“It <i>so</i> fucking is, Kurusu, and you’d be the biggest moron in this goddamn planet if you’re going to try and talk your way out of that one. What you want to do is irrational, it’s fucked, it makes no sense.”</p><p>“What part of this makes no sense to you?” Despite his best efforts, Akira is beginning to feel the rise of frustration in his chest, the hurt of Ryuji’s critiques piling on him. There’s something deeply unsettling to have Ryuji openly defy him. “Because frankly, I didn’t hear you give any other ideas.” </p><p>Ryuji’s eyes widen before barking out a biting laugh. “Oh, good. Low blow, going for that one. Where’d you hear that, the cafeteria? During gym class?”</p><p>The length of the table stands between them, but it feels like miles. “I meant that there’s no other choice but to do this, and I need you to get that through your head.”</p><p>Akira catches a glimpse of Ryuji’s palm, bright red and covered in splinters, as he lets go of the wood’s harsh ledge to aggressively scrub at his hair. “Yeah, sure! No other choice than to do this, yeah? No other choice than to lose the fucking love of my life to that shit-eating detective and the bogus cops crawling around town? Of course, there’d be no other option than to do that, right?” </p><p>“Unless you have any other ideas, then yes, we’re going for that one.” He can’t help it anymore—Akira reaches forward and snatches the pen on the table, flicking and spinning it in his hand rapidly. It does nothing for him. “But I haven’t heard anything half-decent, and it’s not like we can magic one up within the week.” </p><p>“Cut that out. I hate it when you talk down to me like that, patronize me like I don’t get what’s going on.” Ryuji’s eyes narrow. “You know what I <i>do</i> understand though? Something you conveniently didn’t bring up because you can’t bear to go through what you’re going to do to us once you go?”</p><p>He does. He doesn’t say anything. </p><p>“That literally—<i>literally</i>  any of us can go in your place, Kurusu. We can tell Akechi that we called you the leader as a precaution, that we didn’t trust him yet—”</p><p>“That’s enough.” </p><p>“We’re not bound by blood to shove you in an interrogation room twelve meters underground. He’d believe it—that snarky bastard would probably eat that shit up, give us an attaboy for being so careful—”</p><p>“It won’t work.” </p><p>“We can discuss it, as a group this time, and talk out who’d be willing to go. Obviously, Futaba’s out, but I wouldn’t be opposed to me—” </p><p>“<i>You’re not going.</i>” </p><p>Akira’s breathing hard, enough that he feels his bones rattling from within. He’s shivering, he realizes. Pushing the thought of Ryuji in that room, by himself, at the mercy of Akechi’s hands away from himself, he refocuses his attention back to the present. </p><p>“Is it because of him?”</p><p>The light flickers above them. Akira meets Ryuji’s eyes. </p><p>“What did you just say to me?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper. </p><p>Ryuji stares back, searching. “Are you pushing to go because of him? To see him?” </p><p>Akira barely heard what he said, with his ears ringing as loud as they are. The air inside his lungs feels like it got sucked out until there’s nothing left—a sucker punch to the gut. Akira would have taken that over hearing those words. </p><p>He didn’t realize he had stood up until he was grabbing Ryuji’s collar and pulling him close. It’s the red one, his favorite. A bright shade that’s so fitting for him that it’s nothing short of uncanny. It stretches unpleasantly under his fingers. </p><p>“How can you possibly say that? How <i>dare</i> you?”</p><p>“Am I wrong?” His head is tilted up in an angle, arrogant in a way that makes him feel queasy, angry, uncomfortable with something he can’t name. It leaves him unable to speak for a moment.</p><p>Ryuji steamrolls past the beat, words coming out of him without pause that only ever comes out when fury and desperation take over. “You love me, I know that more than anything. But sometimes I can <i>see</i> it; the way you look at him, the way you talk to him, and I <i>know</i> why. I know that it’s part of you to help people like us, people like him, I know that. But—”</p><p>“You’re wrong.” Akira furiously wipes away the stream down his cheeks. Hurt. That’s what it was. Mountains of it. “So damn wrong.”</p><p>“If I’m wrong, then why? <i>How?</i>” his voice cracks. A hand grabs Akira’s wrist, its grip stronger than steel despite how much it trembles. “How are you so willing to leave me?”</p><p>The heat of anger and frustration seeps out of him in one fell swoop. The torment of his words stemming from eyes that Akira had learned and relearned thousand of times. It leaves him feeling hollow. Tired. </p><p>He releases Ryuji and lets his head fall on his broad shoulders, inhaling. Bar soap and laundry detergent from when they went grocery shopping last week. </p><p>Arms encircle his waist, and a chin hooks onto his shoulders, locking perfectly in place—even their bodies don’t know how to be angry at one another.</p><p>“It’s because I can’t leave you,” Akira says eventually. “It’s so I never have to leave you again.” </p><p>“I know.” </p><p>“I’d never, ever let any of you do it for me. Even if it kills me.”</p><p>Arms tighten around him. “I know that, too.” A beat passes. “I love you.”</p><p>Akira closes his eyes and lets it wash over him. “I know.”</p><p>Neither of them apologize. It wouldn’t change what Akira has to do. </p><p>He feels Ryuji’s warmth through his thin shirt and tries not to think about how cold the interrogation room will be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i was initially going to take a longer break from writing bc of work and uni but i can't help it--it doesnt matter how busy i am, i'll always make time for my boys. i've always always wanted to write akiryu in an argument where neither of them are particularly wrong, because i think thats an interesting concept. </p><p>if you liked it, consider leaving a kudos or even a comment :) have a good day and for the love of god wear a mask </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://kareofbears.tumblr.com">my tumblr if you ever want to chat</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>